<Reports coming in that a professor that didn’t receive tenure went postal.
Wow. I am up for tenure in another couple of years. I wonder if I should post this article somewhere in the department?
I hate to say it, but when I heard it was a middle-aged person, rather than a young punk w/a gun, the first thing I thought of was ‘someone didn’t get tenure.’ Jeez.
I know a lot of FReepers don’t like tenure, but that’s the current process and when people work hard and don’t get it, it’s devastating. That said, there can be politics in a tenure decision - racism, gender issues, etc., that may make people go ‘postal’ when tenure is denied. Plus, some people think they are working hard and denial of tenure lets them know they weren’t working as hard as they thought they were. Bad news all around.
We have probably all been at or heard of faculty meetings that were probably one step away from homicide. Things get pretty rough in the academy - people take things very personally.